Walgreens is immediately closing all Theranos ‘blood test centers’ in its stores

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Just a year ago, Theranos was the darling of the medical device industry. After years in stealth mode, the company debuted its custom blood test in 2013 with the pitch that it needed only a few drops of blood to test for a plethora of diseases and health metrics. This swayed Walgreens to begin offering Theranos testing in some of its stores. Amid increasing scrutiny of Theranos, Walgreens has now pulled out. It’s just the latest in a series of major setbacks that could bring down this once-promising company.

Theranos was founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003, who has herself become something of a phenomenon in tech circles. She dropped out of college to start Theranos and raised millions of dollars to get the company up and running. Until just recently, she was believed to be worth over a billion dollars at the ripe old age of 32. However, that was before Theranos’ Edison testing technology came under increased scrutiny.

The Edison devices are supposed to allow a small volume of blood to be separated with microfluidics and tested automatically. It only requires a few milliliters of blood, whereas conventional tests would require a whole vial of blood drawn with a needle. That could make testing faster and cheaper…if it worked. The first hints of trouble came late last year when reports began surfacing about the accuracy of Edison tests. Researchers have also had trouble validating and reproducing the science used by Theranos. Then, the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) identified numerous testing and manufacturing errors at Theranos.

The company’s value has plummeted from an estimated $9 billion to just $800 million in recent months, but Walgreens has stood by its investment in Theranos until now. Theranos recently voided all Edison results produced in 2014 and 2015, but that wasn’t enough for the CMS. The CMS rejected Theranos’ plan to fix its testing and manufacturing issues, and the company now faces sanctions. In light of this, Walgreens says it is immediately closing all 40 of the Theranos testing centers in its stores. That leaves Theranos with just a handful of its own retail testing storefronts in Arizona and California, but government action may soon force the closure of those too.

Everyone wanted the believe that a Silicon Valley startup could come into a mature and sluggish industry like medical testing to disrupt it. That’s something that’s sorely needed, after all. Even Walgreens was happy to get in on the ground floor without proof the technology was accurate. Now, it’s trying to back away, and that might signal the beginning of the end for Theranos.

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>Everyone wanted the believe that a Silicon Valley startup could come into a mature and sluggish industry like medical testing to disrupt it.

The angle you’re missing is that everyone wanted a tech startup founded by a woman to become massively successful because of the GIRL POWER/WOMEN IN TECH narrative. Holmes received the benefit of the doubt time and again, including massive support and investment from powerful people like Henry Kissinger, Senators Sam Nunn and Bill Frist, retired U.S. Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, Gen. James Mattis, Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich, and former Bechtel Group CEO Riley Bechtel. Holmes received massive amounts of fawning press coverage, often highlighting her good looks, youth, and fashion sense.

The truth is there are barely any high-profile successful startups with female founders. Even startups that are mainly targeted at female users like Etsy and Pinterest were founded by men.

dc

Hehe it’s true. She was the perfect person for the role…. but I’ll not cast stones, let’s see how it shakes out. The only thing I trust less than a hot tech stock with a mystery product is the Government.

This was definately a complicating factor, but when push comes to shove, all she really proved was that was that women can be psycopaths, too.

RunningWriting

Why such hostility because she’s a woman? Are you implying that no men have ever engaged in massive and harmful fraud? In banking or in startups? I’m not defending this woman but you seem to be stretching it into a condemnation of all women. Give me a break.

Mahmet Tokarev (Tajik Pride)

It’s not a condemnation of all women, moron. But if you think the fact that she’s a pretty young woman didn’t have anything to do with the overwhelming amount of support she received from powerful people and institutions… you’re kidding yourself.

People are suckers for a good narrative. Holmes played into the BS narrative about “supporting women in tech”.

Eddie Poe

Don’t forget they spent tons of investor money on good PR and media relations. Even as all the stuff was going down they were actively recruiting PR professionals to spin their fast-cratering business story.

Didn’t help though–Forbes listed Holmes net worth as zero recently, after putting her on one of their ‘wealthy young people” lists.

jayd

“It only requires a few milliliters of blood, whereas conventional tests would require a whole vial of blood drawn with a needle.” – that vial may also hold just few mills of blood (but sometimes few of them are needed for different test). So unless you confused mills with drops there’s no compelling reason to bleed oneself at Theranos as the experience just as much “fun” as visiting proper lab (maybe price?).

Looks like they’re re-using profiles now. I guess it’s finally getting harder for them to sign their bots up.

powerwiz

HAHAHAHA Even donating to the Criminal Clinton Foundation did not save this witch.

RAWLCM

This begs the question, did she know it was all a fraud, or was she drinking her own Kool-Aid?

Courtney Karl

I think that this chick is the new Madoff. Seems to me that she knew it was all a scam and was just trying to keep the money coming in as long as possible.

Eddie Poe

Madoff didn’t pretend to make a revolutionary product–just a good ol’ Ponzi scheme.

What Theranos did is way worse. Imagine someone getting an improper prescription due to a faulty test result.

Courtney Karl

Oh, I agree, giving out faulty blood test results is pretty effed up. I’m saying that like Madoff she is entirely complicit in knowing that her stupid machines don’t work. I can’t believe that this company gets off the ground with this untested, non – peer reviewed testing protocol that they “developed”, but I shouldn’t be too amazed, people buy tons of homeopathic”medicine”, like sugar tablets and water for incredible prices, yet nobody is shutting them down, cause you can’t regulate stupidity.

properly schooled

I wonder if Big Pharma is shady enough to set their sights on her to destroy her.

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